My save file is a bit over 70 hrs, but I spent a lot of time in the Casino and I started trying to master every job with my hero. It can probably be beaten easily in well under 60 hrs. If you've played the DS release of DQ4 or 5, the interface is the exact same.
This became a serious contender for my favorite Dragon Quest game. I just really like the job system, which is why DQ3, 7, and now this, are my favorites, and I got caught up in mastering jobs for everyone. There is virtually zero challenge to the game, as the end boss was the only thing that gave me any troubles -- and just having the right 0 MP ability on a few characters makes the end boss extremely easy. Having the fortune teller basically tell you what you need to do, and where to do it, at almost every step of the way is very nice, especially when you're like me and tend to forget what you are doing with any length of time off between playing sessions (for save anywhere games, I've started saving at the place that has my current task, which isn't an option for many points in DQ games).
The few monsters that you can get to join the party serve almost no point except to fill that last slot in your party and for one of the mini-games, with Lizzie being a huge exception. The battle arena for slimes would be better if you could give some direction, which also bugged me for the monster battle arena in DQ8. After playing Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, the Slippin' Slime minigame (in addition to the whack-a-mole minigame in DQ5) that was most likely added makes me think that if Nintendo has a hand in the game, the developers are forced to use the console’s gimmick(s).
The only bad thing I can say about the game, and bad enough to knock it down a point, is the lack of a text speed option. Having to sit through the same text crawl to see how many exp points are needed for the next level, or how many battles you need to fight for job advancement, REALLY drags after a few times. It's not like the series didn't have this option since, oh, the ORIGINAL game on NES.
